Ethics Bites

Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds, the guys behind the always interesting Philosophy Bites podcasts, have just launched Ethics Bites, opening with a 16 minutes interview with controversial ethicist Peter Singer on the subject of our treatment of animals.

Worth checking out if you're looking for something meaty to listen to on the way to/from work. (Or whenever).

Birdbrained no longer?

From Seedmagazine.com:

Alex is an African Grey parrot, but in all likelihood, he wasn't born in Africa. Like most birds in pet shops, he was probably bred as a "domestic" in North America, but that's all we know about Alex's early history. We don't know how his parents are or his exact birth date. Some of this mystery was appealing to Pepperberg in her search for the perfect specimen to test her theories about avian intelligence. She didn't want anyone thinking she'd picked a "super" bird that had been bred especially for smarts. In Pepperberg's hands, Alex (whose name stands for Avian Learning Experiment) was going to show the world that parrots can do more than, well, parrot. Namely, they can mean what they say. If Polly wants a cracker, she really wants a cracker. Or, as Pepperberg explains it, birds can think. And not in the way you've seen your dog thinking when you catch him staring at the exact spot on the kitchen floor where you dropped a pot roast six months ago. According to Pepperberg, Alex his the cognitive abilities of a 6-year-old child. He can identify objects, colors, and shapes, and he's not just repeating what he hears. This is a substantial claim, given that Alex's brain is the size of a shelled walnut.

Via Butterflies and Wheels

Proof, if proof were needed...

Complex issue + 'Comment is Free' = complete mess

Why you should never mess with a herd of Buffalo

(Via Pootergeek)

"F*CK OFF you rat-tickling pervert!"

Wanna see a "neuroscientist" tickling rats?

The consequences of not eating meat

Further to this post…

Should people who care about the conditions livestock are kept in go vegetarian?

Becoming a vegetarian could be said to have a strong symbolic value – it’s a statement that you don’t wish to benefit from or participate in the slaughter of animals for food.

However, it can also have significant consequences. If one person stops eating meat then it makes little difference to the industry. But, if enough people stop eating meat then the profits of those rearing and slaughtering livestock will start to fall.

There are two possible responses to this:

1) Raise prices

or

2) Cut costs

The first response is tricky, as increases in price could simply put even more people off eating meat, thereby starting a vicious circle. So it seems that most producers would opt for the second.

Cutting costs ultimately means a drop in the quality of living conditions for livestock – lower quality food, less room, more chemicals to speed up growth, etc.

The consequences of this will be that smaller producers will be squeezed out of the market, as large scale industrial farms can afford to put out cheaper (if lower quality) meat and withstand market pressure better. So convincing people to become vegetarian, whatever its symbolic value, will favour industrial farming methods and lead to worse conditions for livestock.

Animals Count

What are the chances of cows getting voting rights in parliament?

- Animals Count website

The issue of animal rights is a particularly controversial one, with good and bad arguments on either side. In recent years the debate has become even more polarised. On one side we’re presented with images of animals kept in truly horrific conditions, and on the other with extremists with little respect for human rights. However, from a quickish perusal of their website, it looks like the new Animals Count party (linked to a Dutch equivalent with two MPs) might mark a welcome change in the nature of the debate.

Their apparent tendency to hyperbole aside, I find myself in agreement with much of what the group are advocating. I believe that all people are entitled to basic human rights, protecting them from oppression and cruelty, simply on the basis that they are sentient beings capable of suffering and pain. And on this basis I can see no good reason for excluding the bulk of the animal world from the same consideration, other than by drawing an arbitrary line between human beings and every other sentient creature.

Obviously, a number of rights (as promoted by documents such as the UDHR) make sense only in the context of intelligent beings capable of advanced reasoning. So I’m not suggesting that animals should have voting rights for example. But I do think that there’s a strong moral case to be made for moving towards less cruel means of treating animals, with the ultimate aim of making such cruelty illegal.

When it comes to the most difficult issue, that of medical experiments on animals, the party has taken what seems to me the only sensible course, and called for “an independent scientific inquiry into the validity of animal research”.

It’ll be interesting to see where this group goes.

Seafood: Just too damn tasty

After reading this on Comment is Free, I made my way over to Wikipedia to remind myself of exactly what the term is to describe those of us whose compassion for animals doesn’t extend towards seafood – which is, quite frankly, far too tasty for its own good.

I am, according to Wikipedia, a pesco-vegetarian. Or pescetarian. Or pescatarian, pescotarian, piscatarian, vegaquarian, vegequarian, or even fishetarian.

Reading though the various term I was torn as which to adopt: Pesco-vegetarian, vegaquarian, or fishetarian.

However, I then spotted one I’d overlooked and a clear winner:

Pescavore.